


But these problems aside I think I taught you well

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:44:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Matt gets hurt. Like, Intensive Care Unit, needs to be on a respirator because he can’t even breathe on his own and they genuinely don’t know if he’s going to be okay kind of hurt. Obviously, Karen spends every possible minute with him until he wakes up. Lots of hair stroking and forehead kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But these problems aside I think I taught you well

There’s a roundabout just outside of Matt and Karen’s flat, and she can watch him from the window in their flat that looks out over the street as he walks, pulling his suitcase towards the train station where he’ll catch his train to Cardiff to go film some more Who. 

Well, that was what was going to happen, if someone didn’t run a red light as he was crossing the street. It’s amazing how violent the impact is, because she can hear the thud and see how far he flies, and she doesn’t even realise that she’s outside and dashing down the street to where he’s lying until she falls to her knees beside his lifeless body and screams. 

The driver has the dignity to stop, and it turns out to be some teenager and her mother going to driving lessons, and the mother’s kneeling beside Karen and apologising because her daughter’s such a new driver, and she just hit the accelerator in front of the brake, and the girl’s off to the side hyperventilating and screaming about how she just ran over the Doctor, and all of a sudden Karen taps in to this nexus of calm. 

“Hey,” she says to Matt, and though she’s ninety percent sure that he can’t hear what she’s saying, she just keeps talking because she’s heard somewhere that it helps. “Don’t move your head and neck, okay?” Right. She remembers that from one of the first aid courses she’d done ages ago. “You’re going to be fine, Matt. You’re going to be okay.” 

He doesn’t look like he’s breathing, and he certainly isn’t moving, which isn’t really doing much to lessen Karen’ fear.  _Come on Smithers. You can do it._

She was about to start CPR, but the mother must have called 999 and suddenly sirens and ambulances surround her and an EMT moves her away from Matt’s body. They put a brace around his neck and lift him on to a stretcher and then away on to an ambulance. She runs after him. 

“I’m his girlfriend,” she says to the EMT, hysteria creeping back in to her voice. “Please, let me on.” 

The EMT shakes her head. “No, you can’t, but they’re taking him to the University College Hospital. Closest Tube station is Euston square.” 

She runs back to the flat and gets her purse, and then dashes back out the door and on to the Tube. 

* * *

The wait is interminable. 

The only information she can reliably get is that he’s still in surgery, and that his condition is critical. She calls his mum, dad, and sister, and they all make their way to the hospital in due time. Laura brings sandwiches and coffee.

There are long times of silence between visits from doctors who give them periodic progress reports about Matt’s condition. They don’t think that there’s going to be any brain damage, but they won’t be one hundred percent sure about that for a little while yet. He has other internal injuries, though, and that could be what gets him. The general gist of what the doctors are saying, though, is that things are touch and go and probably will be for a while.  

Around ten o’clock that evening, he gets out of surgery, and even though it’s bending the hospital rules a little bit they let them all go and see them not long afterwards. He’s in the ICU, just one in a long row of beds, and his family gets to go in first and Karen just waits outside the door until they all come out. 

His mom’s crying. 

She walks down the row of beds, and he’s right at the end with a little curtain that separates him from his neighbour. Her hands shake as she sits down in the chair beside his bed, and the thing is that he just looks serene. Absolutely serene. Karen could have sworn that he was just napping if it weren’t for the tube down his throat, and the cuts on his face and all the IVs that tangled around him. 

She reaches out and grabs his hand. “Hey, idiot.” She blinks hard and tries to fight the tears. “You’re going to be okay, Matt. I know you, and you’re going to get through this, okay? You’re going to be just fine.” 

She doesn’t feel like she can talk any more, so she just sits there and holds his hand until the nurse comes and asks her to leave. She gets up and kisses his forehead gently. 

“Sweet dreams, Smithers. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

* * *

She doesn’t really want to leave the hospital, but Matt’s parents give her a ride back to the flat so she just goes. On some rational level, she knows that she needs to sleep, but every time she closes her eyes, the accident is replayed in horrifying detail, except at the end the paramedics conclude that there’s nothing they can do, and everyone packs up and leaves and moves on with their lives, and she’s left there sobbing over Matt’s lifeless body. 

She wakes up in tears and ends up aimlessly surfing the web until the sun comes up. 

She brings a little backpack to the hospital the next day, and she’s equipped with a couple of books, some water, and strawberries in the fridge that she thought might make a good snack. 

She goes and sits beside his hospital bed, and he looks much the same as he did when she left him the night before. 

She kisses him on the forehead again. “Morning, Matt. I don’t think your mum and dad and Laura are here yet, but hopefully they’ll come soon. Do you want to hear a story?” She picks up her book and starts reading. 

That helps a bit. Not really for Matt, because Karen assumes that he’s probably drugged out of his mind and can’t hear what she’s saying, but it keeps a lid on the hysteria and panic that she’s feeling inside. She starts in to _The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared._

Matt’s family show up, and they have to visit in shifts because he’s only allowed so many people with him at a time. She walks along the banks of the Thames with Laura, and they don’t really talk, just smoke their cigarettes and stare at the busy London streets. 

“He’s going to be fine,” Laura says. 

“I think so too.” That statement raises fears in Karen that she’d rather keep hidden, so she takes another drag and stares absently in to the distance. 

* * *

He gets moved to a private room when things calm down, and the doctors are pretty sure that he’s going to make it through. He’s still pretty sedated, and he remains intubated for the time being. It is at this point that Karen’s schedule changes, and she starts sleeping in his little hospital room only goes home for a few hours in the afternoon. Sleeping on chairs is uncomfortable, and it’s getting to the point where she struggles to remember the last thing that she ate that was properly cooked as opposed to purchased from Costa or Tesco. (Arthur did bring pizza when he visited though, and they ate and Arthur swore he saw Matt twitch a bit when he opened the pizza box. Karen significantly doubts that, though.) 

Matt is getting more aware, though, and the cuts and scratches all over his body are beginning to heal and he’s looking a bit more like himself again. When Karen holds his hand, he squeezes it gently sometimes, and she swears that he smiles whenever she kisses his forehead. 

She dreams vividly at night, sleeping on her bed of chairs not far from his hospital bed, about their future together - their wedding, the band of little sharp-cheekboned children they will have, and when she wakes up it’s almost enough to make her forget that her partner in these dreams is lying in a bed with a breathing tube shoved down his throat. It does give her a little bit of hope though. 

* * *

One night, she wakes up with the eerie sensation that she’s being watched, and when she turns to face Matt, he’s watching her with as much of a smile as he can managed with the tube in his mouth. 

If it weren’t three in the morning, she would yelp. Instead, she walks to the chair and sits beside him. 

“Hey,” she says, a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. “Good to see you. We’ve missed you, you know? That’s a hell of a nap you took on us, Smithers.” 

Matt raises a hand and absently tries to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but she guesses that the sedation makes that a little difficult for him, so she winds her fingers in his and rests his hand back at his side. 

“Hopefully they’ll take that out soon now that you’re awake,” she continues, gesturing at the tube. “God, Matt, I missed you so much.” She rests her head on the pillow beside his, and, swallowing back more tears says, “I love you.” 

He squeezes her hand, and then closes his eyes again. She falls asleep along with him.


End file.
